Removing Backgrounds

About this lesson

Learn how the Blend If function in your layers styles can make short work of removing backgrounds from an image.

Exercise files

There are no related exercise files for this lesson, or we cannot provide them due to copyright issues.

Quick reference

Topic

Learn how the Blend If function in your layers styles can make short work of removing backgrounds from an image.

When to use

As a lot of stock images use solid dark or white backgrounds, this tutorial show you how to remove the backgrounds easily while still retaining the color tones and the ability to paint mattes straight on.

Instructions

Load the images you want to merge

Open up the two images in Photoshop

With the move tool drag one image to the tab of the 2nd and hold until 2nd image opens up and drop the new image in

Place image that you want to blend on top

Blend If (Darker background)

Double click on the layer to bring up the Layer styles

Bring up Blending options:

In the Blend If section, drag left slider of the ‘This Layer’ to the right a little.

Then Hold Alt and separate slider to soften the blend Layer style settings

Blend If (Brighter background)

Double click on the layer to bring up the Layer styles

Bring up Blending options:

In the Blend If section, drag the right slider of the ‘This Layer’ to the left.

Then Hold Alt and separate slider to soften the blend Layer style settings

00:04A lot of times, when you download a text from the internet, whether it's from Google

00:08or from Shutterstock, you're going to find that the background is either solid

00:11white or solid black.

00:12This is usually done to give a nice contrast

00:16between the background and the subject in the foreground.

00:19In this case, there's fire at the top and the bottom, and the background is solid

00:23black.

00:24Now the question is, how do you get rid of this background

00:27if you want to composite the texture onto a photo,

00:31like this one over here in the background? Now, of course, like everything

00:34in Photoshop, there are a lot of ways

00:36of doing it, but I can show you a fairly simple way that should work on most of

00:40the textures that you downloaded from the Internet. The way a lot of people

00:44suggest doing is to simply go over to the blend modes in your Layers panel

00:47and then choose Screen, which is supposed to take out the black in the photo.

00:51And in this case, it doesn't look too bad, but if I undo

00:55and then redo, it lost a little bit if its color, and you really have no control

00:59over the final result in the blending.

01:02So for some photos this may work well, but for others it may not work as

01:06expected.

01:06So I can undo, Command or Control ‘Z’ one more time, and this time we want to hop

01:11into our layer styles.

01:12So I'm going to double-click on this texture photo in my layers panel

01:15to bring up the layer style dialogue box. And you want to direct your attention

01:19towards the bottom

01:20of this blending option section, which is Blend If.

01:23Blend If will allow you to blend out the shadows or the highlights

01:27in this layer, which is the layer that you're currently on: or the

01:31underlying layer, and that's done using the sliders at the left and the right.

01:35The shadows are on the left, the highlights are on the right. Now, because you want to

01:39blend out

01:39the current layer, the one that we have selected we're going to just use the top

01:42sliders.

01:43Now, if I was simply to grab the top slider and drag it to the right, you're going to notice

01:47the black is certainly disappearing,

01:49but the edges of the texture are becoming very harsh and sharp,

01:52which you probably don't want. So let me go ahead and put it back to

01:56the left.

01:57Now, this time if you look really closely, I'm going to zoom in here on the screen,

02:01you may notice that this slider is actually composed of two halves.

02:04And this will allow you to split the slider up,

02:08which will transition the blending a lot cleaner.

02:11That's done by holding down your ALT or Option key,

02:15Option on the Mac, ALT on Windows, and dragging the right-side of the slider to the right.

02:19Now, this time you'll notice the blending is a lot smoother

02:24than it was before.

02:25And if I simply keep going to the right, more and more black will disappear

02:29from the photo.

02:29So I can keep going if I want a little bit more transparency, or drag it a

02:33little bit back to the left

02:34to keep some black color in the photo. And unlike before,

02:38which took a lot of the color out of the photo and left the texture pretty

02:41transparent,

02:42we now have a nice, vibrant texture with a little better transparency,

02:46that we can control using the blend if sliders.

02:49And pressing OK will apply that affect directly to the photo.

02:53And we can see our final result. So just to compare, let me hop over to my history

02:57panel,

02:58go to window and then down to history and duplicate this document.

03:01And on this one, I'll get rid of the Blend If, and I'll simply switch over to the

03:06screen blending mode.

03:08So this is what it would look like with the screen blending mode applied.

03:11And this is what it looks like with blend if mode. Some of you may like this

03:15look because it’s a little bit more transparent than the blend if method.

03:17But if you're looking to keep the color and the

03:20transparency, especially over top of the model,

03:23then you may want to take a look at Blend If. Now, in this case, I would probably

03:26increase the Blend If a little bit more to add a little bit more transparency,

03:30especially in this

03:31area here, around her forehead, but for the most part,

03:34I love the vibrancy, love the texture, outside the model.

03:37Where as, if we go back to this photo, it's a little bit bland

03:40and a little bit too transparent for my liking. And again, using blend if gives

03:44you complete control, so you can

03:46always double click and adjust the Blend If sliders if you need to,

03:50you can always adjust the overall opacity of your texture if you like.

03:54So that's the first example of getting rid of a black background.

03:57Now, what about a white background? Well luckily it works almost the same.

04:01So in this photo here, we have an object

04:04sitting on a completely white background. Now in many cases, you can simply go to

04:08the blend modes

04:09and choose Multiply, which is supposed to get rid of the white background.

04:13And it did, but it also left the subject a little bit transparent.

04:16So again, I'll undo - Command or Control ‘Z’, and double click on the layer in the

04:20Layers panel to bring up my blending options.

04:23I'll zoom in a little bit and move it over to the left.

04:26And just like on the last example, we're going to go down to the Blend If section.

04:30But this time, instead of blending out the shadows, we're going to be blending out the

04:33highlights.

04:34So I can hold on my ALT or Option key and simply drag to the left. You’re going to notice

04:39the white is starting to disappear. Now if you look closely, you can probably see

04:43that there's a little bit of white

04:44that got removed on the object itself. Now, there's a few things you can do about

04:48this situation. You can either

04:49dial back the Blend If slider, which could bring back some of the white in the